


The Tiny Peeta Diaries: Family Time

by aimmyarrowshigh



Series: The Tiny Peeta Diaries (Or, Five Times Peeta Made People Say 'Dammit') [3]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon Compliant, Family Fluff, Gen, Illustrated, Pre-Series, Toddlers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-07-15
Packaged: 2018-08-23 03:44:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8312677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: Under the fence
  
  Come outside,
  
  Close it tight
  
  So we can hide.
  
  Over the hilltops
  
  'Round the forest we go,
  
  Here's my arrow...
  
  And here's my bow!
--Illustrated by everybodysbadintentions.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [District Twelve (The Girl with the Boy)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/812846) by [aimmyarrowshigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh). 



> Somehow I had never posted these over to AO3 back in 2013! So, enjoy. :)

* * *

**003\. Family Time**  
Peeta Mellark stared unhappily at his feet.

He never had before. He'd never had a reason. They were feet; they hung out at the ends of his legs and made him walk.

Simple.

But until today, he'd had equally simple little slippy shoes with buckles, which he liked very much. They made a good clacking noise when he galloped down the sidewalk back to the bakery from the delivery route, and he could put them on either foot and they made sense.

But his mother said he was too big for buckle shoes if he was big enough to go to school, so Barm had dragged him (a bit literally) to the Cartwrights' shoe shop and he'd been fitted for his own pair of heavy brown work shoes.

With laces.

Peeta did not trust the laces.

He had watched Mr. Cartwright show him how to tie them, but then when he tried, he got all tangled up and his shoe got trapped on his foot and he hurt his fingers and he was stuck.

Peeta scowled and tried to pull off his new shoes, but tumbled backwards instead and lay on the stoop. He gave up. He would lie here, helplessly trapped in his new shoes until he died.

The Bakery door creaked open above him and Barm's scruffy face peered out.

"Well, don't step on me," Peeta warbled. "I'm down here. I'm dying."

"You're dying?" Barm asked, coming outside and hunkering down beside Peeta on the stoop. The breeze felt nice after a day manning the ovens, even if it were a sweltering, humid Indian Summer day. "What are you dying of?"

"Death," Peeta said ominously.

"Dying of death," said Barm. "That sounds serious. Any idea what caused it?"

"My shoes," Peeta said. "My legs don't like 'em."

"Why not?" Barm asked. "Let's take a look at those new shoes. Sit up."

Peeta sat up and stuck his foot on Barm's knee. "They're pinchy and they're sticked on my foots and I can't tie the laces."

"But look at how nice the leather is," Barm said, rapping on the sole of Peeta's shoe with his burned knuckles. "You can jump in a million puddles with these and your socks won't get wet."

"Yeah," Peeta said dubiously. "But I gotta put them on the right foot or they hurt a lot."

"Well, you know right and left," pointed out Barm. "Tell me how you know right and left."

Peeta frowned. "Forks go on the left. Spoons and knifes go on the right."

"Right," Barm agreed. "So just draw a little fork on the bottom of your left shoe."

"Okay," Peeta said dubiously. He narrowed his eyes. "But I still can't tie the laces."

"Well, that's a little tricky," admitted Barm. "But let's unknot that mess you've got going there and I'll show you how to do it right. It's not harder than making a pretzel, I promise."

"My pretzels are terrible," grumbled Peeta. He plonked his other foot down on Barm's knee and Barm set to disentangling the rats' nests of knots that Peeta had made in his shoelaces.

Finally, they were undone and Barm untied his own shoe. "Okay," he said. "Hold the laces in each hand."

Peeta held his laces.

"Now, follow what I'm doing with my hands, and see how it matches this poem, okay? It'll help you remember.

_"Under the fence,  
Come outside  
Close it tight so we can hide.  
Over the hilltops  
'Round the forest we go,  
Here's my arrow  
And here's my bow!"_

Peeta nodded approvingly. "That's a good poem!"

"Peeta, your fingers are tied together," sighed Barm. "You didn't listen."

"I was listening!" insisted Peeta. "I can't watch and listen at the same time; it's too much stuff. Let me try it by myself."

His fingers were clumsy, but he followed Barm's poem – he imagined the fence around the outskirts of District Twelve, where he'd been only once or twice with his father on deliveries to the Seam Healer's house. He'd only seen trees outside the fence, but anything could have been there. He imagined shouldering a bow and arrow like Magdalen, when she brought squirrels and rabbits and sometimes, even turkeysor grooslings to the Bakery doors early, early in the morning, and adventuring through the forest for things to hunt.

"I did it!" he crowed, sticking out his foot. "I made a bow!"

"Good!" encouraged Barm. "Now, so you don't have to do that over and over all day, just double knot it – " he twisted the bow on Peeta's shoe – "Like this."

Peeta beamed, looking down at his new shoes. "Thanks for helping me." He glomped onto Barm's shoulders. "Now stay here and listen and tell me if my shoes still clack good."

He bounced down the bakery steps and galloped up and down the street as the sun blazed into a red sunset, and the smell of tangy sourdough pretzels wafted from the Mellark Bakery doors. Peeta galloped along the square, past the Peacekeepers in uniform leaning on the lampposts, past Delly with her yellow curls peeping at him from the cobbler's window, past Cinna at his dressform in the corner of the tailor's shop, scalloping feathers onto the long, linen skirt of a white gown.

"Peeta!" called Barm, waving him back to the Bakery, "Come home and set the table!"

Peeta ran back and crashed into Barm's knees, almost knocking them over with the force of his hug. "How'd I sound?"

Barm grinned and rested his hand on the back of Peeta's head to lead him inside. "I think you sounded even louder, Peets."


End file.
